Bishop Cotton School Shimla

Bishop Cotton, in a letter written to Dr. Slater had suggested the School Motto: Overcome Evil with Good. He wrote: I have suggested Overcome Evil with Good’ as the motto for the School. It was the text on which I preached in the Cathedral in Calcutta on the Thanksgiving Day in 1859 when the School may be considered to have been founded. The idea of the ‘Public School, which carries so clear an image today, did not exist in 1859 in India and the history of Bishop Cotton School is of public interest for the part it played in the development of public schools and in the wider history of education in this country. In the 1840s the great schools numbered not more than half a dozen in England, and Eton, the largest, catered for fewer than 500 boys. In India, there were a handful of private schools and Military Asylums, educating the children of their neighborhood rather than the public at large.  Bishop Cotton School, Shimla, is the one of the oldest boarding schools boarding schools in shimla in Asia, having been founded on 28th July, 1859, by Bishop George Edward Lynch Cotton, son of an Army Captain, who died leading his Regiment in battle. A scholar of Westminster, and a graduate of Cambridge, in 1836 he was appointed Assistant Master at Rugby by Doctor Thomas Arnold, one of the founders of the British Public School system. It was the young Mr. Cotton who is spoken of as the the model young master in Thomas Hughes’ famous book Tom Brown’s School Days which gives an insight to school life at Rugby.

Auckland House School Shimla

Auckland House School has a past worthy of notice. Lord Auckland, the then Governor- General bought the house in 1836, for the use of himself and his sisters. Later Viceroys moved elsewhere and the house was sold. The School authorities bought Auckland House in 1868. The project for starting a school to provide sound education to girls on boarding schools in shimla Christian principles was initiated by the Rev. J.B.D Aquilar in 1864. It was given a practical shape by a Church-related ladies group in Dalhouise who began collecting funds for this school which they wanted to be placed in Dharmamsala. However on the persuasion of Mrs. Cotton, wife of Bishop Cotton, it was founded in Shimla in the spring of 1866 at Holly Lodge on Jakhu. Two years later, the school authorities bought Auckland House and the name of the school was changed accordingly. The school began with 32 pupils and the the Head was Mrs. Mackinnon. The School shifted to its present site on the 6th of November, 1869, after extensive alterations and additions had been made to the building, including the School Hall.